Chapter 4 - THE BLACKENED PHONEHarper called my plan reckless.
Marisol tried to stop me.
“You’ve just recovered a traumatic memory.”
“I want to know what happened after I disappeared.”
“The police can handle that.”
“I want to know what my family did.”
She understood the difference.
Twenty minutes later she brought in a hospital tablet.
I searched my own name.
Hundreds of articles appeared.
CLAIRE BENNETT, BIOMEDICAL EXECUTIVE, DIES IN LAKE HOUSE FIRE.
CHICAGO PHILANTHROPIST REMEMBERED AT PRIVATE SERVICE.
BENNETT FAMILY MOURNS SECOND LOSS IN ONE YEAR.
Photographs showed my mother dressed in black.
Grant carried my framed portrait into Saint Matthew’s Church.
Vanessa stood beside him, leaning against his shoulder.
I stared at that photograph for a long time.
“When did they start dating?”
Marisol sat beside me.
“Three months after the funeral, according to the articles.”
I laughed.
It hurt my ribs.
“Three months.”
There were society stories describing how grief had brought them together.
How Grant had supported Vanessa after losing her beloved sister.
How Vanessa had supported Grant after losing the woman he intended to marry.
A tragedy becoming an unexpected romance.
The journalists loved it.
I nearly vomited.
Then I found the estate filings.
That was where the real story began.
Because with me dead, the restrictions in Dad’s trust vanished.
Vanessa inherited my shares.
My trust.
My voting authority.
Nearly eighty-three million dollars in combined assets.
Within six weeks, Bennett Biomedical had signed a proposed acquisition agreement with Mercer Global Holdings.
Grant’s company.
I stared at the screen.
“Grant benefited.”
Marisol did not answer.
I had not decided whether I wanted her to.
I remembered loving him.
That was worse than remembering the fire.
Grant and I had met at Northwestern during a medical technology conference.
He was not a scientist.
He was an investor.
He asked too many questions during my presentation, then waited outside the auditorium and asked if I wanted coffee.
I told him no.
He asked again the next morning.
Eventually, I said yes.
For four years he had been patient, funny, relentless and kind.
Or I had believed he was.
Now my sister had my inheritance.
And Grant was about to gain control of my father’s company by marrying her.
Coincidence had officially become too expensive to believe.
Detective Elijah Harper arrived the next morning.
He was forty, maybe forty-two, with tired brown eyes and a suit that looked as if it had spent the night in his car.
“I investigated the Whitmore Lake fire,” he said.
“Then you buried the wrong woman.”
He did not flinch.
“Yes.”
I respected him for that.
“Whose body was it?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“You confirmed it was me.”
“The medical examiner received dental records matching yours.”
“They weren’t mine.”
“We know that now.”
“Who submitted them?”
He hesitated.
“Your family dentist’s office sent them electronically.”
“Who requested them?”
“Your sister.”
Of course.
Harper placed a folder on my bedside table.
“The remains were severely damaged. Identification relied heavily on dental comparison and personal effects.”
“My engagement ring.”
“Yes.”
“I was wearing it the night of the fire.”
“Do you remember losing it?”
“No.”
“Someone removed it from you.”
I looked at the burn scars disappearing beneath my hospital gown.
“Before or after I got out?”
“That’s one question.”
“What’s another?”
“How did you get six miles from the house?”
I closed my eyes.
Nothing.
Harper continued.
“The location where Samuel Ortiz found you was not directly accessible from the property on foot without crossing woods, a creek and a state highway.”
“Someone moved me.”
“Possibly.”
“Vanessa?”
“Maybe.”
“Why save me after setting the fire?”
Harper leaned forward.
“Maybe she didn’t.”
The room became colder.
“What are you saying?”
He opened the folder.
A photograph showed tire tracks beside the road where Samuel had found me.
Another showed a torn piece of black nylon.
“We believe someone removed you from the house before firefighters arrived. But there was blood in the trunk area of a vehicle based on trace evidence recovered from your coat.”
“You found my coat?”
“Samuel did.”
I stared at him.
“So somebody carried me away.”
“Yes.”
“And dumped me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“We think they believed you were already dying.”
I turned toward the window.
Chicago stretched beyond the hospital glass, bright and indifferent.
“What happened to Vanessa’s boyfriend?”
Harper frowned.
“Elliot Crane?”
“Yes.”
“He disappeared approximately twenty-four hours after the fire.”
I looked back.
“Disappeared?”
“No verified credit activity. No passport use. His primary phone was destroyed.”
“Was his body ever found?”
“No.”
My skin prickled.
Harper watched me understand.
“You think the body in the house was Elliot.”
“We’re reopening the identification.”
“Vanessa killed him too?”
“We don’t know.”
I hated those words.
We don’t know.
Maybe.
Possibly.
Investigations were built from uncertainty.
My sister had built her new life from certainty.
I was dead.
Elliot was gone.
Dad’s money was hers.
Grant was hers.
Bennett Biomedical was almost hers.
Everything worked as long as I stayed buried.
“When is the wedding?”
Harper stared at me.
“Claire.”
“When?”
“Saturday.”
Three days.
“Where?”
“You are not going.”
“Where?”
He sighed.
“Saint Aurelia Ballroom.”
I started pulling the monitoring leads from my chest.
Marisol rushed toward me.
“What are you doing?”
“Going home.”
“You can barely walk without assistance.”
“I have three days.”
“To do what?”
I met Harper’s eyes.
“To find out whether Grant helped murder me.”
Harper stood.
“You walking into that wedding would destroy any advantage we have.”
“No.”
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed.
Pain shot through my hip.
I waited until it passed.
“Vanessa’s advantage was that she thought I was dead.”
Harper nodded cautiously.
“Exactly.”
May you like
I stood.
“Then imagine what happens when she finds out she was wrong in front of four hundred witnesses.”
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